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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108275">Fragments</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix'>Prix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Push (2009)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:21:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Cassie sees things she really doesn't like. Sometimes, she imagines things she does. Most of the time, a few of both come true.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nick Gant/Cassie Holmes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fragments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts">alexcat</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Yuletide! </p><p>Feedback is appreciated.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cassie looks across the hotel room at Nick. His shoulders look relaxed, and the light off an old television casts different colors on his skin and shirt – most of them with a twinge of electric blue. </p><p>She is sitting on top of a giant heat-and-cool unit that vibrates faintly beneath her. She pushes herself further back against the window and the heavy, dark curtains that are just a little dusty. She draws her knees closer as her gel pen clicks near her chapped lower lip. </p><p>She doesn’t want to ruin this for him, but the picture doesn’t lie.</p><hr/><p>“Cass?” Nick asks her. It’s been weeks since they left Hong Kong. Being out of the relative lawlessness of the expatriate haven makes them both a lot more careful to look over their shoulders. It isn’t just the U.S. that’s looking for people like them to weaponize or perform experiments on. </p><p>Nick is worried that Division will find them. </p><p>Cassie is more worried about who they might see. </p><p>“Cass?” he repeats, and she only just realizes that she’s been stirring in her food for too long without eating any. She opens her mouth to summon words. She feels Nick’s thumb – warm and a little calloused – touch her bony jaw. She flinches and meets his eyes. </p><p>“Whoa,” he says, withdrawing his hand when she reacts. She doesn’t tell him that it wasn’t that she didn’t like it. “Sorry,” he says, grazing over the word. “Just… you’ve been playing in your food for a while.” </p><p>“Observant,” Cassie quips, trying to find her equilibrium again. She makes it a point to start eating.</p><hr/><p>It’s the closest call they’ve had in a while. Cassie’s knee is turning several shades of red and purple while her shin is dappled in dark, dry red. She barely feels it because, of course, Nick took the worst of the fight. </p><p>She pushes at his shoulders to try and make sure he stays upright, conscious. He’s heavy to her skinny arms, and when she calls it good-enough, she reaches for his face with both hands. His stubble is prickly against her palms. His eyelashes are dark and look heavy. </p><p>“Nick! Look at me,” she demands. </p><p>He groans, defiantly, but after a moment he blinks open his eyes. She doesn’t let him see how she sighs with relief. </p><p>“Compared to those Bleeders in Hong Kong – just a scratch.” </p><p>“I’m still going to find you a Stitch or a hospital,” Cassie insists right off the tip of her tongue. </p><p>“Hospitals are bad for getting caught,” Nick remarks. </p><p>Cassie presses her lips together. He’s making sense, which probably means she at least has some time to get him checked out. He is probably right that the number of steps to a good Stitch is fewer than the precautions necessary to take him to a regular hospital. </p><p>“Fine. You can get up, I won’t take you to a hospital,” she bargains. She takes a step back and waits, ready to help him steady himself once he finds his footing. She can at least do that.</p><hr/><p>“What is it you’re not telling me?” </p><p>Cassie stops breathing for a second. He finally asks her the question she has been waiting on and has been dreading to hear. She meets Nick’s eyes. There’s a cut on her lip and a bruise on his cheekbone, but they’ve been worse for wear over these past months – it’s got to be getting closer to a year, but Cassie measures her life less by calendars than by pages and canceled deaths. </p><p>“Please don’t be mad at me,” she says, laying bare more than she normally would. She sits up straight, hands clutching her notebook fiercely – holding it shut. She exhales and it’s shaky. </p><p>Nick’s eyebrows knit down over his eyes. </p><p>“So it is something,” he says. </p><p>It isn’t the reassurance she was hoping for. Cassie looks around the room and its four walls and the glow of the bathroom light. She takes a glance at the locked way out. She hopes he doesn’t leave. She hopes he doesn’t make <i>her</i> leave, though she thinks she knows him well enough for that to be out of the question. </p><p>“I told you that we’d see Kira again, right? Sometimes. Someday...” </p><p>Nick’s face relaxes, but it is only to take on a wistful, longing sort of expression that twists Cassie’s stomach in two different directions. His mouth goes slack, and she thinks he has forgotten what he meant to say. </p><p>“Well...” she says, a bit of a gulp as she looks down at her lap and the cover of the notebook she has been guarding a lot more carefully as what she has seen about <i>Ms. Trouble</i> has taken shape.</p><hr/><p>It goes about as well as Cassie had expected it to. </p><p>He hadn’t believed her, but he had enough faith in her to insist that it’s just a <i>mistake</i> or some trick Division is using to keep them away, to keep their Patient Zero safe and secure inside. </p><p>It doesn’t make sense, but Cassie lets him believe it for a while. She can hardly do anything else, because the recklessness that has overtaken Nick’s mind and body since she told him the truth has made the future harder to see with any degree of certainty. </p><p>Her drawings look more childish than they ever have, but they are filled with blood and dead ends and big pupils that overtake Kira’s eyes.</p><hr/><p>They’re in New York, and Cassie can’t even be excited about being back in the States. She can’t look around with much wonder at all the colors and lights of the city. </p><p>She knows New York is big and impressive and that there are lots of things to do, but she notices how generally unimpressed she feels with all of it. She doesn’t have time to think about it except in the fragmented pictures she sees in her mind. The best she can hope for out of it is something decent to eat. </p><p>And there’s a thought in the back of her mind and races to the front like the cars that refuse to follow the rules at pedestrian crossings: Coney Island.</p><hr/><p>Cassie keeps pace with Nick as they walk toward the spinning tea cup ride in the dark. She thinks she would have enjoyed sneaking around in an amusement park at night if her heart weren’t rising in the back of her throat. </p><p>She glances up at Nick and, for a moment, wishes their gifts were reversed. She knows exactly what she would do if she were a Mover here, but her only real weapons are her pen and her brain, both of which could be cracked like eggshells if she’s right. More and more often, she is. </p><p>Kira’s hair is dark, but Cassie spots her sitting in one of the tea cups, her back turned to them. She sees her because of the perfect way her sleek hair reflects the blinking neon that hasn’t gone off for the night. Cassie almost gives herself a paper-cut on her thumb. Kira’s hair reminds her of the paper. </p><p>She glances up at Nick’s eyes, searching and then finding her. His pupils dilate, too – with interest and hope and stupid <i>love</i> that he’s entirely too willing to die for. </p><p>When Kira stands up and turns to dismount the tea cup to face them, Cassie’s hand shoots out and holds Nick back by the middle of his abdomen. It’s firm and warm, and she knows that there is absolutely nothing physical she can do to stop him, but she hopes that he will pay some attention to her. </p><p>“Nick, I’m serious,” she warns once more, but a part of her knows that the only way out is through. </p><p>“Do you see Carver here? No? That’s because it worked, Cass,” Nick says lowly, holding desperately onto the reassurance he has given her over and over again. </p><p>“Hey Nick,” Kira says brightly. Her clothes are a little too well-tailored to be suited for meeting someone on Coney Island. If she was ever the girl in that photograph – which Cassie still hasn’t had the wherewithal to believe – she isn’t quite there anymore. Instead, there is something cold and predatory in her eyes, and Cassie thinks that it isn’t all her own jealousy that’s putting it there. </p><p>“Kira. We found you,” Nick says, a little too softly. He pushes past Cassie’s effort to hold him a safe distance away, and she lets him go. She hangs back, looking around, watching for the gleam of sniper weapons somewhere up high or something worse. </p><p>“I was hoping you would come to me,” Kira says, and Cassie notices the way Nick firms up his stance. He senses that something is wrong, but he doesn’t want there to be. </p><p>Cassie’s heart breaks for him a little, even though she has known this was coming for months. </p><p>Kira may love Nick enough not to want him dead, but she had found herself with a perfectly <i>pushed-in</i> cover story on a private jet with a boss dead by suicide, winging her to a place and position of assumed authority that would give her a near-endless supply of the drug which has made her the most powerful of them all.</p><hr/><p>They leave New York alive. </p><p>Cassie knows that she should be pissed off that she is in some nowhere German-speaking town with about twelve traffic signs. She had been the closest she could remember being to her mother, but the cold comfort is that all three of them are alive: her mother, Cassie herself, and Nick. </p><p>She has to be the one to reach across the table, grip Nick’s forearm, and remind him to eat something.</p><hr/><p>Nick goes through his days like a zombie for a while. Adjusting to the fact that Kira had taken on her role as Division Director with flying colors and had become convinced that it was a <i>good thing</i> for people like them to be in league with an army drains the color right out of his face. Cassie even thinks she’s seen a couple of silver hairs working their way onto his face and head, but for any aging he’s doing, she hopes she is at least keeping up.</p><hr/><p>“I’m sorry,” he says one day. </p><p>It’s peaceful here. Surprisingly so. Cassie is sitting upon a stone bridge, looking down at the shallow, murky river and the geese and ducks. She hugs her sweater closer around her and shakes her head to get some of her hair out of her face as she looks at him. </p><p>“What for?” she asks. </p><p>There’s some light in his eyes as he looks a little surprised. </p><p>“What do you mean ‘what for’?” he echoes, and it’s the closest thing to levity Cassie has heard in a while. </p><p>“I mean… is it something general or specific? Recent, or…?” she asks, trailing off, because she has a dark sort of gut feeling that she knows what it’s about, even if it hasn’t come to her in a vision. It usually doesn’t come down to the words in conversations. </p><p>“You know what I’m sorry for. Or, you know what I should be sorry for. You’ve known ever since we left New York. I shoulda… I shoulda listened to you.” </p><p>Cassie takes it in. She breathes in some brisk springtime air. She watches a duckling follow a bigger duck up the bank. She nods, taking in what she finally has to. She breathes out, finding that she forgives him whether she should or not. She kind of has to, but mostly she wants to. </p><p>She straightens herself and leans her weight back a little so she won’t knock herself down into the kind of gross water in the process. She punches Nick on the arm. </p><p>“You should’ve listened to me before that,” she says. It’s all the retribution she’ll take unless he asks for more. </p><p>Nick takes the punch in stride. He braces his hands against the worn, old stone of the bridge and leans forward. He watches the water flow far downstream. </p><p>Cassie swings her legs back around and stands up. She’s a bit taller than when they met, but he’s still taller than her. She watches him staring out and tilts her head, trying to catch his eyes. He is reluctant to look at her, but he finally gives in and meets her gaze. </p><p>“Nick?” she asks, a bit redundantly. She frowns at him but with a faint upward, hopeful quirk of her lips. </p><p>“Why’re you smiling?” he asks. </p><p>“I’m not exactly,” she tells him. </p><p>“Are you waiting?” he asks. </p><p>Cassie blinks as her mind goes in several directions, the rippling rings of a stone falling in. </p><p>“Waiting for what?” she asks. </p><p>“Me?” </p><p>Panic tightens her throat a little, and she’s both relieved and disappointed when he corrects himself. </p><p>“To get my shit together and go back. Go after your mom.” </p><p>“Well...” Cassie says, a bit too soon – before she really knows what she’s going to say. She swallows and nods. “… Well, of course I’m still going to get my mom,” she says. “But the ironic thing about Kira being in charge is that she does see us as a little more human. I’m… I have time… that I didn’t have before, but I still don’t want to leave her in there.” </p><p>“I don’t blame you,” Nick says. </p><p>Cassie’s chest hurts a little, but she thinks it’s the mature thing to say. </p><p>“The future changes all the time,” she reminds him. “People do...” </p><p>Nick pushes himself off the heels of his hands and stands up straight. He turns to head back to town, not wanting to hear what she has to say. She feels guilty that she feels relieved about that, too.</p><hr/><p>They fall asleep on the same hotel bed for the first time. They’re still on top of the blankets, leaned back and watching old episodes of <i>Doctor Who</i>. Cassie isn’t sure which of them dozes off first, but when she opens her eyes, she notices that she can feel the soft fabric of Nick’s hoodie brushing against her arm as his chest and belly rise and fall. </p><p>Her eyelids are heavy, and for a moment, she can pretend he knows what it means to her.</p><hr/><p>In the days and weeks and then years that pass, she knows that he doesn’t have a clue. </p><p>He doesn’t know that the amount of time they spend together mean that he’s interlocked in her visions of the future nearly every time she has them. There is no future Cassie without a future Nick. </p><p>He doesn’t know that it hurts and makes her sick, then, every time they go to a new place, and he finds another beautiful woman to get his mind off Kira and what he thinks he lost. </p><p>One day, she decides to try it herself. She meets a boy hanging around a tourist district, looking for a skinny, leggy, teenage blonde just like her. </p><p>She tastes his mouth and it’s cheap alcohol and cigarettes. She can even manage to ignore that for a while, but then his hand is on her waist, and it’s the wrong fit. With two or three pushes and shoves, she gets away from him, their language barrier realized and forgotten in a moment.</p><hr/><p>“Mom?” Cassie asks. It’s been three years, and finally they’re in a desert at sunset. Cassie has to squint to see and squint to believe against the orange landscape. There is a sterile-looking, rather short but long building. It’s like a prison but more pristine. They guide her mother out, and suddenly Cassie doesn’t think about the cuts and bruises and scars. She doesn’t think about the fact that this is a battle long and hard-won and not the end of the war. </p><p>She knows that, in a way, they are in even more danger now. </p><p>She runs to see her mother when she dares to trust that it isn’t a trap or a dream. </p><p>Her mother holds her. Her mother is too thin and weak from being drugged and lying in a bed, but she is clear-eyed enough to know her, and that’s enough. </p><p>“What do you say we get her a cheeseburger?” Nick asks, and that’s how he introduces himself to her mom. </p><p>Cassie’s heart swells so much that she doesn’t even scold him.</p><p>Night falls on them in a diner, her mother still dressed in a long, white flannel robe and scrubs.</p><hr/><p>Her mother is in a safe house in Virginia – lush green mountains, fresh air, and a few cows. </p><p>Cassie promises that she’ll come back, and she will do everything she can to keep that promise. </p><p>The fact that they have won her mother’s release with some dirty bargaining and a well-executed plan doesn’t mean that they’ll stop looking. </p><p>If anything, they’ll look for Nick and Cassie as hard as ever. </p><p>For now, her mother is safe. She isn’t the only Watcher to fear in the world now.</p><hr/><p>“I’m seventeen today,” Cassie says. She’s lying in bed with Nick. They’re on top of the covers, fully-clothed, with extra-blankets – one for each. She has her back turned to him. She can feel him move and the faint radiance of his body heat. </p><p>She wonders which one of them is pretending. </p><p>She feels Nick sit up and turn to her. </p><p>She winces but then dares to turn and look at him, wondering if the number makes a difference. </p><p>“How in the—” Nick starts. </p><p>It isn’t the response Cassie had imagined, but she knows that hadn’t been a vision, either. </p><p>She knows that he stays with her until the next time they try not to die. She doesn’t know if that means he wants to be with her or if it’s just habit, obligation, or seeing her like she’s a kid he has to look after. </p><p>“What?” she asks, a bit peevishly as she sits up and wraps herself tight in her blanket. </p><p>“How come you’ve never told me your birthday? How come I’ve never told you mine?” </p><p>“I know yours,” Cassie remarks. </p><p>She watches and manages to stop feeling quite so glum when she sees a bit of horror dawn on his face. </p><p>“Well that’s not fair. I… I know we’ve celebrated a lot of stuff, but we’ve never celebrated a birthday,” he says, reaching up to rub at his beard. He needs to shave again. </p><p>Cassie smirks weakly. </p><p>“I’d say celebrating every time we beat one of my death predictions is kind of like a birthday,” she says, deciding to let him off the hook since it sounds like she’ll get <i>some</i> kind of celebration today, if not the one she’d dreamed about.</p><hr/><p>It isn’t a birthday or a magic number that finally gets through to him. </p><p>It’s when they’re separated for eight months once, and the day he tracks her down, she finds herself riddled with cuts. It is intentional – torture – and she’s bleeding all over the place and about to go into shock. She won’t bleed to death if they move quick. </p><p>She tells him where to go. </p><p>He has no choice but to take her to a hospital, and because he isn’t family they make him wait. </p><p>And wait and wait and wait. </p><p>Cassie is hardly aware of anything, but as they give her something to knock her out and ease the pain, she sees a flash of him in the waiting room and she sees the clock spinning round and round – 67 hours.  He leaves to go to the bathroom and the hospital vending machines a couple of times. Otherwise, he stays vigilant in the waiting room closest to the place they’d taken her away. </p><p>When Cassie is on her feet again, she thanks them and pays her couple-thousand dollar tab in cash. </p><p>Then she walks out to meet Nick in the waiting room, absolutely refusing the wheelchair they offer her. Her skin still feels like she is a whole-body skinned-knee, but she’s mostly better where it shows. </p><p>He lifts his head and stares. By the time he rises to his feet, Cassie is halfway to him. </p><p>She jumps up to wrap her arms around his neck. It isn’t the first time, but she’s a woman and a little heavier now. He can’t swing her around quite like she’s made of air. </p><p>She holds onto him, finally able to take in his familiar scent and not let go. </p><p>She feels his nose in her hair, too. </p><p>“We both need to take a shower,” she remarks. </p><p>Nick makes a sound of agreement and slowly lets her down. </p><p>“Sorry,” he says. </p><p>Cassie shakes her head and before she leaves her tiptoes, she decides to ask him. She reaches up and catches his cheek with her hand as he tries to look away. </p><p>“Nick?” she asks. </p><p>Then she telegraphs her movements, tilting her head a little and leaning up higher. </p><p>When he doesn’t stop her, she plants her lips on his. It’s the first time, and it’s more awkward than she had imagined, but she’s alive, and he doesn’t seem to mind. After a moment of being shocked, he even puts his hand on her waist.</p><hr/><p>Outside, walking alongside the road until they come up with a new plan, they are holding hands, and Cassie thinks it would be good enough for her if he just never made her let go. </p><p>“I… always meant to ask you,” Nick says. </p><p>“Ask me what?” Cassie asks. </p><p>“Where you always get those big wads of cash.” </p><p>Cassie giggles helplessly for a moment and turns to look at him. </p><p>“Lottery numbers,” she tells him. “The small ones, but lots of them.” </p><p>“You’re kidding,” he says, deadpan. </p><p>She shakes her head and tiptoes. The tips of their noses brush together. </p><p>“Nope.”</p>
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